Five years ago, I wasn't a member of the Democratic Party.
My earliest overtly political memory is walking a precinct with my parents for Bobby Kennedy. My father ran for Congress in the next election, an aerospace engineer whose living came from the defense industry... running against the Vietnam War, and in what today we'd call a red district--a gerrymandered district that more or less ensured a Republican would win.
And that's what happened. Though dad did well--better than any Democrat had in that district--the district ensured a GOP win. Still, I learned a lot, traveling with my father and listening to politics being talked at home.
I never lost those values. But sometime around 1990, the Democratic Party no longer really represented them, as far as I could tell. I left.
The details don't really matter. But five years ago, Howard Dean brought me back to the Democratic Party. The things that it had stood for were restored to prominence and I saw real hope--enough that for the first time in my life, I donated more than $20 to a candidate for anything (quite a bit more, in fact). I still have the "Sand Diego for Dean" shirt.
I attended meet-ups. I talked to people. I left literature. I worked phonebanks.
I was... devastated when Dean lost to Kerry.
I'd been against the war before Bush started it. I was one of the people who nearly left the country (the largely filled out paperwork is still in a folder in my desk), because I saw what he and his administration were doing was shredding the fundamental fabric of the country... and because I have sons who'll be bullet-sponge-age soon, and I'll be damned if I'll make it easy for them to be sucked into the neocon fiasco.
Kerry? I'd come back to the Democratic Party because of Howard Dean. Kerry wasn't my second--not even my third--choice. I was profoundly disappointed (I still am). The Kerry campaign was unfair and underhanded in their treatment of Dean. So was the media--nothing I've seen done (yet) to any Democratic candidate this time around is nearly as bad as what Dean faced.
But leaving the country isn't something I really wanted (or want) to do. Not... yet. Not if we don't have to. Because of those values I learned as a kid, because what America is really about matters so very much to me, we stayed.
Instead, I campaigned for Kerry.
Phonebanked. Donated. Manufactured my own (really big, hard to damage) sign and put it in the front yard. Argued with people--there's one Republican I used to be friends with who I still barely deal with--about where the country was (is) going.
Because in the end, a Democratic administration that's not anything like what I hope for, or what we need... is better than a GOP administration. We couldn't afford a second Bush term (and I think that was borne out).
I understand how very much a campaign can mean, personally.
And I understand how hard it is to let go and to accept a candidate and a vision that's not what you think we need is.
I understand that the historic campaign has pitted the first African American with a real chance of winning against the first woman with a real chance of winning. I understand that means that there are strong emotions and bitter feelings... because one of them has to lose -- because one of them always had to lose, and that was going to leave marks.
But we all need a Democratic administration. Actually... we need several, I think. It's going to take much more than four years to repair what George has damaged so badly.
It's about restoring civil rights. It's about restoring human rights. It's about restoring and rebuilding the rule of law in America, and rooting out secret courts and secret prisons and the use of torture. It's about restoring our international standing and our ties to the rest of the world. It's about getting out of Iraq--and not going to war with Iran, too. It's about saving our kids from those who would use them up for their own profit and political gain--my sons and goddaughters, my nieces and nephews. It's about a woman's right to choose. It's about the Supreme Court.
It is--at this point--essentially certain that Obama will win the nomination.
The question for you is whether a Democrat who is not the Democrat you wanted and dreamed of is going to get your support. I don't think that there's a real question that an Obama administration will be better for woman and for Americans as a whole than a McCain administration will be. One only has to look at what McCain stands for... a century in Iraq, war with Iran, more of the same economics that benefit the very wealthy, no progress on health care, and the most glacial (pre-global warming glacial, at that) attention to the environment and climate change.
It's your choice, really.
I didn't get Dean--I got Kerry (and I still wish he'd beaten Bush).
You want Hillary, and you're not going to get her. Are you willing to get McCain?